For fourteen years I had funded Jason’s life while letting him keep the dignity of appearing to fund his own, and I had thought of this as a gift I was giving him, a kindness, a way of protecting a man’s pride.

But a gift that is never acknowledged as a gift stops being received as one.

Somewhere in those years, the money I provided stopped registering to Jason as my generosity and started registering as merely the way things were — as his, effectively, since it flowed to him without his having to ask.

And once a man believes your money is already essentially his, the only question left is why he should have to wait for you to spend it on him.

Why not reach directly into the account?

Why not copy the numbers into a notebook, so that even your caution cannot stand between him and what he has decided is his?